


Range of Light

by daniomalley



Series: Superheroes [1]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Comic Book Science, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2776949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daniomalley/pseuds/daniomalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's not right at Patrick's new school. There's something odd about his classmates and he's pretty sure his Chemistry teacher is up to something, but his efforts to find out what's going on yield surprising results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Range of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_ragnarok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/gifts).



> Written for bandom_holidays, for the_ragnarok. Hope you like it!  
> Massive thanks to my beta littlerhymes who did so much to make this fic better.
> 
> This is vaguely a prequel to my fic, _Speed of Sound_ , but it stands entirely on its own.
> 
> I make no guarantees that the science represented in this fic resembles actual science in any way.

_...The tide of popular opinion finally turned against Senator McCarthy in 1953, when he accused the prominent superhero, The Silk Clock, of having communist sympathies. McCarthy’s accusation led many of the best known supers of the time to unite in defending The Silk Clock, who was much beloved by the public. This allowed critics such as Drew Pearson to finally make people listen to the truth about McCarthy._

_What tools did McCarthy use to retain power for so long?  
Why were they effective?   
Why did things change when he targeted The Silk Clock?  
How might things have turned out differently if he had not accused The Silk Clock of being a communist?_

Patrick glowered at his textbook and rubbed his forehead. At his old high school, they’d been studying westward expansion in History. They’d covered twentieth century the year before, and all he could remember was a vague impression that McCarthy was kind of a dick. He didn’t think that would make an acceptable answer to any of the questions posed. ‘In conclusion, Senator McCarthy was kind of a dick.’ No, probably not.

He glanced at the teacher. You never knew, of course. Maybe that could be his backup answer.

Patrick flipped back to the previous page to see if he could catch up with the rest of the class a little, but it was a horribly dull chapter on the aftermath of World War Two, and his attention drifted almost immediately. He glanced around the room to see if maybe everyone else was as confused as he was. On his left sat a guy who was sort of really unfairly good-looking, staring out the window. He wasn’t even holding his pen. Patrick relaxed a fraction. At least he was probably getting more out of the class than that kid.

Patrick had done nothing more to answer any of the questions than draw a shark eating McCarthy’s head, when the teacher called for everyone’s attention and asked students to share their answers to the questions. Patrick straightened up and covered his page. She wouldn’t call on him, he hoped. It was only his first day, after all. None of the other teachers had been that cruel.

“McCarthy used fear,” one student said. “Like, by making people afraid of... you know...”

“They thought there were Communists under their beds!” someone else offered. 

“Yeah, and, like, that they had to watch out for everyone all the time because you don’t know who’s on your side. So, suspicion, and, like, not being able to trust anybody.”

“And it worked because people were so scared,” a different student said.

“Yeah, and maybe, I think, like, if the war was so bad? Like, maybe the war was so bad that people thought they should go along with anything he said because they thought he could stop another war.”

“Very good,” said the teacher. “So why did that stop working?”

She was only calling on people who raised their hands, which was nice. Patrick sat back and listened.

“When McCarthy accused Silk Clock, everyone liked him too much so they stopped listening.”

“I think it was more than that,” said someone else. “Because McCarthy was protecting people – or, no, he _told_ everyone that he was protecting people – and superheroes also protect people, so when he accused a superhero, it was like people were choosing who they thought could protect them better. And they chose superheroes.”

“Excellent!” the teacher said brightly, and Patrick scribbled that point down because it sounded important, like she’d just had a great idea for a question for their final exam.

“If he hadn’t accused a superhero, it would have just kept going on forever,” said someone. “There might still be a House Un-American Activities Committee today.”

“Nah, he would have run out of people eventually.”

“No, people wouldn’t have put up with him forever. If he just ended up accusing everyone in the country they’d all get together and realise he was making it up.”

“It didn’t have to be a super,” suggested a different student. “Maybe if he accused someone in the army or the police or something people trusted, they would have stopped believing him.”

“A super was the best, though,” replied someone else. “Or the worst, for him. Supers have way too much power, no one goes against them on anything.”

“Oh, come on, Cassidy,” said someone sitting opposite her. “You know McCarthy was lying about all of it, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Cassidy said impatiently. “I’m just _saying,_ supers sometimes lie about things too, but you can’t ever point that out without everyone getting all in your face and stuff. Sometimes superheroes do bad things, and no one ever questions them because they’re _superheroes_.”

“Supers do,” argued the other girl. “They watch each other. No one else could do it. They know how to beat other supers’ powers.”

“But they can’t always know what other supers’ powers are...”

“They keep track.”

“But you can get a Seeder to just give you any new power you want, just like that, so anyone could...”

“That’s bullsh- um. Ahem. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Patrick turned in his chair, surprised, as the dark-haired boy he’d noticed before spoke up for the first time. The girls paused in their argument to look at him too.

“Neither do you, Pete,” said Cassidy sweetly.

“Seeders can’t just give anyone a power. And they can’t control what power you get, either.”

“It’s very convenient for them that you believe that.”

Pete rolled his eyes and didn’t answer her, and the teacher seemed to realise how far off-topic they’d become and started giving out homework assignments. The bell rang and Patrick packed up his books, then checked his map to see where he would find his next class. Chemistry. The day was looking up.

The lab was far better supplied than Samuel High School, with the back of the room taken up by bulky equipment covered with signs. ‘Hands off’, the signs read, and, ‘Not to be used without a teacher’s supervision’. Patrick hoped for a chance to at least try out the centrifuge. He’d never seen one in use before. He was so busy looking over his shoulder at everything that he didn’t notice that the teacher had come in until he heard a throat being cleared directly in front of him.

Patrick swivelled around in his chair quickly. “Sorry,” he said automatically, but when he saw how heavily the teacher was glowering he wished he’d made his apology a bit more heartfelt.

“Mr Stump, is it?” the teacher asked. For some reason his tone was sceptical, like he doubted Patrick could actually be his new student.

“Yes?” Patrick replied. The teacher raised an eyebrow at him, and Patrick could almost see the sarcastic question form. He braced himself for it, but instead the teacher said, “If you’re quite ready to join us, Mr Stump, we’re denaturing proteins today.”

Patrick looked around. While he’d been distracted, his classmates had paired up, with one group of three. He stood up and shifted his feet uneasily.

The teacher looked at the trio of students and said, “We’ve got an even number now. Joe, you can partner with Mr Stump.”

“Sure, Mr Horst.”

So he didn’t call everyone by their last name, Patrick was just special. That was awesome. One of the three students, a boy with wildly curly dark hair, took a single step away from the other two. Patrick figured this was probably Joe. One of his friends was Pete, the hot daydreamer from history, and the other had long red hair in a ponytail. As a group they fixed Patrick with identical flat, intimidating stares.

Screw the fancy equipment. This class sucked. His teacher hated him and his classmates were assholes. And he already knew how to denature proteins. He hunched his shoulders, grabbed his books and moved across the room.

“Hey,” he muttered to Joe.

“Hey,” replied Joe. “Mr Stump.”

His friends snickered. Patrick felt his face go red. “It’s Patrick,” he insisted.

Joe was already setting up a Bunsen burner and not really listening. Patrick grabbed his notebook and started writing up a lab report. He’d thought that the three friends would be busy talking to one another and shut him out, but they were weirdly quiet, quieter than the most conscientious of students had any right to be. The pairs of students working at the other desks were chatting away happily enough, but not these three. And they kept looking at him, almost suspiciously.

Patrick put up with it for a few more minutes and then looked up to catch the hot one staring at him. He glared back angrily, and the guy smiled. “I’m Pete,” he said. “This is Andy.”

“Um. Patrick,” said Patrick, because he felt a need to say something. “Stump.”

Pete grinned even wider. “I know.”

Patrick was relieved when the bell rang.

***

Patrick went back to the lab at lunchtime, hoping to find Mr Horst and ask about doing extra credit work. He was there, but Patrick must have startled him because he spun around when the door opened and nearly knocked over the rack of test tubes he was working on.

“Oh, uh...” Mr Horst grabbed a box and put it over the test tubes, pushing them back against the wall. “What are you doing in here?” By the end of the question, he seemed to have recovered from being startled and sounded closer to pissed off.

“I wanted to ask about using the spectrometer for extra credit work,” Patrick said quickly.

Mr Horst blinked at him. “That’s a very specialised piece of equipment,” he said, as though that in itself was an answer to Patrick’s question. Patrick just looked at him. “I only allow seniors to use it, and only those taking AP Chemistry may use it for extra credit.”

“I’m going to take AP Chem next year,” said Patrick.

“Then you’ll have to wait until then, won’t you?” Mr Horst said sharply. He turned away, then looked back at Patrick as if to ask why he was still there. Patrick scowled and left the room.

What was Mr Horst working on back there? And why was he so eager to hide it?

Patrick didn’t really cope with not understanding what was going on. It was part of what made him excel at science; all that drive to really figure things out. Something was clearly off with Mr Horst, and he wasn’t going to rest until he discovered what it was.

It didn’t take all that long to come up with something. All he needed was a way to sneak into the lab before he left for the day.

That turned out to be easy enough. He just headed over after the last bell and lied to the janitor about forgetting his calculator. He had Chem second period, so he wouldn’t have to sneak in again in the morning.

***

He hurried to class early the next day, hoping to be the first one there, but unfortunately Pete, Joe and Andy were faster, already huddled in the corner when he walked into the lab and carrying on a furious whispered discussion. They fell abruptly silent when he came through the door, turning to stare at him like they were the three heads of Cerberus or something. Patrick gulped.

He stopped in the doorway and waited. They didn’t look away, and the silence stretched out. “Hey,” Patrick squeaked. No response. Goddammit. Why were they staring at him?

Patrick heard someone clearing their throat behind him and hastily stepped out of the way. Mr Horst. Perfect. Now he had a teacher glaring at him from one side and three weirdos from the other. If they kept this up for the whole period, he was screwed.

Fortunately, the rest of the class started arriving. Patrick slid into a seat just in front of Pete and set about ignoring him and his friends. Mr Horst plugged in a projector and started lecturing. Patrick paid just enough attention to scribble down a few cursory notes.

His chance came halfway through the lesson, when they were working through a set of questions in the textbook and everyone was distracted. Patrick quietly slid his chair towards the bench which ran along the wall, and reached between the stacks of books to where he’d hidden the camera. He put it into the pocket of his hoodie and checked to make sure no one had seen anything.

It was clear. He let out his breath and did his best to pass the rest of the lesson without being noticed.

***

During lunch, Patrick went into one of the computer labs – the one way up by the gym, because he knew it would be empty. He took a computer in the corner where the screen couldn’t be seen from the door, so that he could go through the photos from the night before. It was rather tedious. He’d hadn’t been able to use flash, of course, so he was only going to have usable photos if the lights in the lab had been turned on overnight. 

Patrick began to scroll through the photos – endless shots of a black room, the only source of light the fluorescent tube that lit the hallway overnight and shone through the glass panel in the door of the lab. He was going so fast that he skipped over the first few photos that were different, and had to go back.

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Definitely not Mr Horst – none of the people in the room were tall enough to be him. There were three figures, all carrying flashlights, apparently looking for something. Two of them wore masks, but the third... Patrick peered at the face, trying to identify them. He thought the third person was probably male, with short dark hair, and he thought they seemed familiar, but the quality of the photo wasn’t good enough for him to be sure.

He went to the next photo. The two masked figures had moved around, and one had pulled out a stack of papers and seemed to be going through them. The unmasked figure wasn’t in the photo, to Patrick’s disappointment. Something was bundled up on top of a desk in the middle of the room.

In the next photo, both the masked figures were looking through the papers. The unmasked person was still out of frame. The light had shifted in the room as the two masked figures had brought their flashlights together, and Patrick was almost certain that the bundle on top of the desk was a t-shirt. Were those pants underneath it? Strange. There was a fuzzy shape in the bottom left corner – Patrick peered at it. Was that an animal? It looked like an animal, a cat or something. No, the legs were too short to be a cat. It might be a small dog or a raccoon or something. He could see its snout.

In the last photo, the papers had all been packed away. The animal was gone. The third person was back, and they were facing the camera much more squarely than in the first photo.

It was Pete.

Patrick blinked and looked again. It was definitely Pete. He was sure of it. The clothes that had been piled on the desk must have been his, because he was only wearing jeans and held the t-shirt like he was about to put it on. For a second Patrick forgot what he was doing and stared at Pete’s bare chest. Then a sudden, loud laugh from outside woke him up and he blushed a deep red. He quickly clicked through to the next photo.

Nothing. Whatever those three had been doing – and Patrick had no doubt now that the other two with Pete were Andy and Joe – it hadn’t taken them more than ten minutes. What were they looking for?

He checked the rest of the photos rapidly, although he wasn’t expecting to find anything else, and he was right. He saved the four useful photos to a flash drive and deleted the rest. He made sure there was no trace left of what he’d been doing and logged off just before the door swung open to admit a handful of girls chatting about an English paper they needed to write.

Patrick ducked his head and left the computer lab without being noticed.

***

He had History after lunch. The teacher assigned an oral presentation, to be completed in pairs, and while the rest of the class groaned Patrick felt particularly hard done by. No one was going to want to pair up with the new kid.

Patrick looked around for a partner and was startled when Pete came to stand squarely in front of him. “Partner?” he asked with a grin.

Patrick blinked and very carefully did not say ‘I think you can turn into a badger.’ “Sure,” he said instead. “Let’s sit.”

Pete pulled his chair over to Patrick’s desk. “You’re pretty good in Chem, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I guess so...”

“Good.” Pete opened his History textbook to where a page ripped from a notebook had been tucked between the pages. He put the book in front of Patrick. “Can you make sense of this?”

Patrick squinted at the page, which was covered in a messy scrawl he could barely read. “Where did you get this?” he asked. Pete didn’t answer and after a second Patrick realised that this must have been what they’d been looking for the night before. He looked at the page more closely and frowned.

“Seriously,” he said, looking at Pete. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“That’s not really important,” Pete said, and he grinned, but it only made him look more tired.

“Bullshit,” said Patrick. “You have no fucking idea what this is, do you?” He waved the sheet in Pete’s face. “Do you?” he demanded when Pete didn’t reply.

Pete snatched the paper out of his hand. “Obviously not, that’s what I was hoping you could help with,” he snapped.

Patrick glared at him, then looked at the page again. “Why was Mr Horst keeping this in his lab?” Patrick asked.

Pete gaped at him. “How did you...”

Patrick gave him an unimpressed look. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked. “Why should I help you? You could be up to anything.”

Pete looked furious and leaned forward to say something vicious, but at that moment the teacher appeared and said, “Pete, Patrick, let me hear what you’ve done.”

Well, shit.

***

Pete, it turned out, could spin bullshit with no sign of hesitation or shame, and Patrick could only look on in awe. Patrick tried to work on their assignment for the rest of the period while Pete distracted him by talking about various irrelevant things – mostly not having to do with the notes he’d stolen from the lab, which he’d hidden again. When the bell rang Pete grabbed his arm.

“Meet us by the bus stop after school,” Pete demanded. Patrick sent him a challenging glare, and Pete added, “Please. We need your help. And I can prove that you can trust us.”

Finally, Patrick gave a reluctant nod. He collected his books and stood up, and he was almost certain he heard Pete say, just on the edge of hearing, “Somehow.”

Patrick arrived at the bus stop like he’d been instructed. Pete, Joe and Andy circled him and more-or-less herded him off down the sidewalk. They walked quickly for ten minutes or so, until they reached a secluded park and sat on a bench out of view of the road. Only then did it occur to Patrick to worry that he was outnumbered and no one knew where he was.

“Um...” he began, standing up.

“Sit down,” said Andy. He sat.

“What’s going on?” Patrick demanded.

“What do you know about Mr Horst?” Pete retorted.

Patrick wasn’t having it. “You said you’d prove I could trust you,” he said. “If I’m going to tell you anything, I want to be sure it’s not going to come back to bite me. What’s going on?”

Pete sighed. “Fine.” He looked at Joe and Andy, who nodded at him.

“Mr Horst has been the head of the Science department for four years now,” said Joe. “And he’s always been a little bit off, but lately a few weird things have happened at the school, so we did some digging, and...”

“There was a Science teacher on the other side of the country who snapped, about four years ago,” Andy said, taking up the story. “Cops found plans for a death ray in his office. He’d already started assembling it. But he disappeared before they could arrest him.”

“So...” Patrick said. The other three looked at him. “You think that teacher was Mr Horst?”

“He went on the run and made a new identity for himself here,” said Pete. “We think, anyway. We’re pretty sure. See, this is an article about the teacher.” He pulled out a printed news article and handed it to Patrick. “We couldn’t find out anything about Mr Horst that goes back more than four years. It’s just suspicious.”

Patrick skimmed the article, but it wasn’t very informative.

“We’ve been cautious, up until now, but we were getting desperate to figure out what he’s up to, so we...” Pete stopped and looked at the other two. They all looked a bit uneasy, like they didn’t want to admit to what they’d done. “We, um...”

“You broke into the school last night and searched the lab,” Patrick said impatiently. The demeanour of the other three changed instantly. Joe grabbed Patrick’s shirt and pulled him forward; Patrick squeaked in surprise.

“How did you know that?” Joe demanded.

Now it was his turn to confess to some less than ethical behaviour. “I hid a camera in the lab, on a timer,” he admitted. “I’ve got some photos.”

The other three were silent for a long moment. “Where?” Pete said at last. “Hand them over.”

Patrick considered refusing, but he really had no choice. He handed over the flash drive and it disappeared into Pete’s pocket. “Any other copies?” Pete asked.

“No,” said Patrick. “That’s it.”

Pete subjected him to a long look, like he was judging Patrick’s sincerity, then gave him a nod. “I showed you what we found, earlier this afternoon,” he said. “But you never explained what it meant.”

Patrick remembered what Pete had shown him, and frowned. “Where is it?” he asked, and Pete brought out the page again.

“Do you know anything about Kristen Campbell’s work?” Patrick asked. He looked around the group and received blank stares in return. He sighed.

“Campbell uses the theory that every super has a unique chemical signature,” Patrick began. He saw Pete’s eyes glaze over, and tried again. “You, you’re a shapeshifter, right?” he said. Pete startled, then nodded reluctantly. “And maybe you have other powers too, I don’t know.” Most supers did. “Your abilities are unique to you, like a fingerprint. Even if someone else has the same combination of powers, they won’t manifest in exactly the same way. Campbell believes that this signature can be identified through DNA samples and mimicked synthetically.”

He paused to let the other three take that in. Andy was the first to say something. 

“You mean that we – we could be identified through a blood sample?” Andy said suspiciously. “Or fingernail clippings or something?”

Patrick waved his hands, hoping that he was reassuring them but probably being a little too frantic to accomplish that. “This is a very new area of research, and it’s extremely complicated,” he said. “It’s not like just anyone off the street would be able to do it. Even if they did, they’d need some very specialised equipment.”

“Like what?” Pete asked.

Patrick gaped at him, another piece of the puzzle slotting into place. “A spectrometer,” he breathed. The other three didn’t react, and Patrick held in an impatient sigh. “There’s one in the lab,” he explained. “I asked Mr Horst about using it for extra credit work, and he was really protective of it.”

“That’s weird,” said Joe.

“Well, I mean, it’s an expensive piece of equipment. Even most universities wouldn’t have one as high-end as the one at school.” Patrick thought about that. “Did the school have the spectrometer before Mr Horst turned up, or did they buy it after he got the job?” Once he’d asked the question Patrick realised he might as well not have bothered. Mr Horst had come to the school four years ago, when they’d all still been in middle school, and anyway, they hadn’t even known what a spectrometer was until Patrick told them. “Never mind.”

“He’s probably onto us, then,” Pete said grimly. “And he’s going to use this technology to figure out our identities.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Patrick said. “From these notes, I think Mr Horst is using the spectrometer to analyse his own signature.”

“Why?” asked Pete.

“Because if he knows what it is he can manipulate it,” said Patrick grimly.

“You mean...”

“He could make himself equipment that enhances whatever powers he might have,” said Patrick. “Or he could make himself a drug that would affect his powers, or give him new powers.” He pointed to the page and turned it around so the others could see. “That’s what this is, his notes on a drug that he’s making. He could do this work more easily by working with a trained Seeder, but if he’s on the run and cut off from other supers, or if he’s just a normal who isn’t in contact with any supers at all, he’d have to figure it out on his own.”

The other three exchanged a glance. “That doesn’t really prove that he’s the same teacher from the articles,” Joe said thoughtfully. “We thought he was building some kind of weapon. What’s so bad about trying to give yourself superpowers?”

“Because,” Patrick said impatiently. “It’s straight-up supervillain behaviour. This is really unpredictable. He could end up with a power he can’t control, he could become a danger to everyone around him. Even Seeders are only supposed to work under really strict controls and regulations. We can’t let him do this!”

“Okay, okay,” Pete said quickly. He and Joe weren’t really looking at anyone and Patrick belatedly realised he’d somehow stepped into the middle of something he didn’t understand.

The awkward silence stretched out until Andy said, “Now we know what he’s up to, what are we going to do about it?”

***

They walked back towards the school, bickering about what they should do. Joe wanted to go to the police, but Pete didn’t think they’d be believed and Andy was concerned about protecting their identities. When they couldn’t figure out a way around that, they started discussing the necessity of someone keeping an eye on Mr Horst.

“I should follow him,” Pete said. “It’ll be safer for me.”

“You can’t do that,” Andy said. “What if he notices you?”

“What if he notices _you_?” Pete retorted. Andy made a face at him.

“You know it’s different for you, Pete,” Joe said, and Pete threw his hands up in the air.

“I don’t _care_!” he snapped. “What’s the point of having superpowers if you can’t use them? If all I can do is hide away just in case...”

Their argument grew more intense, and Patrick slowed down to let a bit more distance grow between him and them. Andy dropped back to stand with him.

“Are they okay?” Patrick asked, concerned.

Andy shrugged. “They’ll work it out. It’s just a bit awkward for them right now. See...” He paused and looked at Patrick, and seemed to decide something. “You might as well know. Joe, he’s a Seeder.”

“He’s...”

“Yeah, and he knew that Pete had a latent power, but he didn’t know what it was, so they went and...”

“Oh, shit,” Patrick breathed. “Oh, fuck, and I...”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Andy waved away his concern. “It’s nothing they didn’t know. Or shouldn’t have known. It turns out, Pete’s power is muting other supers’ powers. When Joe and I are around him, we’re basically normals.”

“Right,” Patrick said. “Shit, it could have been so much worse, Andy! What if his power had been to kill with a touch, or breathe fire...”

“It’s bad enough,” Andy said seriously. “He can’t turn it off. So if Mr Horst goes through with giving himself powers, and he notices that whenever Pete’s around his powers disappear...” 

Patrick’s eyes widened as he understood the implications. 

“That’s why they’re fighting,” said Andy. “We can’t risk Pete being noticed by Mr Horst, but Pete hates feeling useless, and Joe blames himself for the whole mess...”

“Pete can’t go back to school until this is sorted out.”

Andy shook his head. “Pete won’t agree to that.”

They were passing the school gate now, and Patrick looked towards the building as though he could see the answer to their predicament written in the brick. They all slowed down as they walked past. They all stopped when they heard a tremendous crash coming from inside the school.

“What was that?” Joe asked. Patrick could think of half a dozen plausible and ultimately harmless explanations, but before he can suggest any they hear a piercing scream coming from the same direction of the crash.

“Come on,” Pete said grimly, pulling a mask out of his bag.

They ran through the gate towards the noise, Patrick trailing after the other three. If this was going to be a regular thing, he was going to need to do more fitness training.

“What are you doing?” Joe asked when he noticed Patrick jogging along behind them. “You don’t even have a mask!”

“Of course I don’t, I’m not a super!” Patrick gasped. 

Joe rolled his eyes. “Stay behind us, and go to the payphone on the second floor,” he said. “Call the cops.”

“But I thought...”

“It’s too late to come up with something else now. And whatever you do, stay out of the way. If you get hurt, Pete would...”

“What?” Patrick asked. “Pete would what?” But they’d reached the stairwell and they could hear someone crying for help. Joe put his head down and charged after Andy. Patrick trailed behind and could see the other three slow to a stop as they reached the top of the stairs. He looked over their shoulders.

About ten feet away, the normal school hallway turned into something else. Trees blocked the end of the hall from view. They towered overhead, far higher than the ceiling should have allowed. Their huge, mossy trunks prevented them from seeing very far, and the ground was covered with moss and fallen leaves. It was like a rainforest, or a jungle – not the kind where Tarzan went swinging past on vines. Anyone who tried that here would slam into a tree trunk and get eaten by a jaguar.

“What is it?” Patrick asked in a hushed voice.

“Some kind of illusion, maybe,” Andy whispered back. 

“Think Mr Horst is in there somewhere?” Joe asked, and instead of answering, Pete took a tiny step forward. The dense forest melted away as he got closer. Definitely an illusion, Patrick decided. Nothing else made any sense.

They edged into the jungle and as they got further in, the trees closed in behind them. Patrick moved a little closer to Pete and he could see Joe and Andy do the same. They walked on a square of linoleum that was centred around Pete’s feet. There was no sign of Mr Horst; the trees were too closely packed for them to see far ahead. They became transparent and faded away to nothing when Pete got too close, but the ones slightly further away looked no different to a real tree.

The only thing that wasn’t quite right about the jungle was the silence. Nothing moved, there was no sound of birds singing or other animal noises. That did more to convince Patrick it was an illusion than the trees which turned transparent and disappeared. The trees were built in Mr Horst’s imagination and populated by nothing. Just him.

Then they reached a spot where some of the trees didn’t disappear. They’d been walking for a while, very slowly, but still, Patrick was pretty sure they should be just about at the end of the hallway. But there were no walls to be seen and Pete reached out a hand to place it against a tree trunk; Patrick could hear the bark rub against his palm.

“What does this mean?” Patrick wondered.

“I have no idea.” Pete stepped past the tree a little bit and peered further into the forest. “These are some bizarre reality-warping powers.”

“Do we keep going?” Andy asked.

“We have to, don’t we?”

They kept walking. Patrick pulled a cap out of his bag and pulled it low over his face, put on some sunglasses and turned up the collar of his shirt. It didn’t do a whole lot to hide his face, but it would have to be enough. His backpack was heavy and he wished he didn’t have to carry it, but he wasn’t going to leave it here where he might never find it again.

Patrick remembered that he’d never called the police like Joe had told him to; the payphone had been hidden by the forest illusion and he’d been too unnerved to leave Pete’s side. No one was coming to help them, unless Mr Horst caused enough of a disruption to get noticed by someone else. He looked back. The forest extended behind them and Patrick realised with a sinking feeling that he wasn’t sure he could find his way back if he needed to. The sky was hidden by leafy branches. The air smelled of earth and sap. Maybe this forest was all that was left of the world.

Once or twice, Patrick thought he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He began to hear sounds; a growl, the scrape of claws. He exchanged a glance with the others and saw that they’d noticed too. Not his imagination then. That was a bit worrying.

Patrick wasn’t looking so closely for Mr Horst anymore, because he was constantly looking over his shoulder for whatever seemed to be following them. He was still taken by surprise when something leaped from behind a tree and ran towards them.

It was a strange, vaguely humanoid sort of creature covered in scales and with long, sharp teeth. Looking at it made Patrick’s skin crawl, and he scurried backwards. They all scattered and the creature seemed to look around like it was trying to decide who to go after.

It charged at Andy. Andy rapidly backed up and then vanished from where he’d been standing, reappearing behind the monster. It turned around and went after Joe; Andy teleported into its path, yelled, and ran to the side.

While Andy kept the monster distracted, Joe ran to one of the trees and placed his hands on it. He looked like he was concentrating hard, and after a few seconds the tree twitched and stretched, its branches moving of their own accord. Andy teleported to stand by the tree and shouted at the scaly monster, luring it close enough that the tree grabbed it and held it tightly in its grasp.

They stared for a minute as the creature struggled. “Are there going to be more of those out here?” Patrick wondered.

“Let’s keep moving,” Pete said, rather than anything reassuring.

They didn’t get too much farther, though, before the forest floor gave way to a steep drop. Joe nearly stepped over the edge but Andy grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Patrick peered down cautiously and could see pavement some way below.

“Is that the car park?” Pete asked.

“Looks like it,” said Andy. “This is the edge – we must have gone past him.”

That was more disturbing than the monster which had attacked them. Patrick thought about the idea that they must have passed by Mr Horst and not seen him, and shivered.

“Better go back, then,” said Joe, and they turned around. 

They were retracing their steps, but nothing looked particularly familiar. Just the same sight in every direction. “What if he can use illusions to hide in?” Patrick asked. “We’d have to walk right into him to find him.”

They all considered that. The corners of Joe’s mouth turned down and Pete scowled. 

“I can search more quickly by myself than with the rest of you,” said Andy.

“No!” said Pete. “It’s not safe. You saw that monster before. There could be more of them. We should stick together.”

Andy looked like he was going to protest, so Patrick added, “If he’s only just got this power, he’s probably still figuring out how it works. There might be other things he can do that we haven’t seen yet. We might need you with us.”

And, as if to prove Pete right, a growl came from behind them and they all turned around to be faced with a bear. Andy worked to distract it like he had before, but Patrick saw an indistinct shape moving towards them through the trees.

“There’s more out there,” he said, pointing, and Pete nodded. 

“We have to find him soon, we won’t be able to keep this up for long,” said Pete, which only made Patrick despair, because how could they possibly find Mr Horst in this wilderness while they were being attacked by monsters and wild animals?

The figure Patrick had seen moving through the trees was closer now, and he could see that it was a lion. A freaking lion. And behind it were other things, some that looked like normal animals and others that resembled the horrifying scaly creature they’d seen earlier.

“They’re all coming from that direction,” Pete said. “Come on!” And he ran straight for the lion as though he’d fight it with his bare hands.

“Pete!” Patrick yelped, panicked. He ran after him, trying to grab Pete’s arm and drag him back, sure that they were both about to be mauled to death. The lion crouched to pounce as Pete got close, but as it began to spring it lost its solid appearance, and by the time it landed in front of Pete it was no more substantial than morning mist. Patrick sobbed a little bit and ran harder.

The other monsters disappeared as they got close too. It was all happening to fast for Patrick to take much notice. There was a tiger, he was pretty sure, and a wolf. There was a spider the size of a car, although he only noticed it at the last second before it disappeared. And there was Mr Horst up ahead, watching them coming and starting to look worried.

“You should have run,” Mr Horst said with a deranged grin on his face. “What can you do to stop me? Nothing! I can remake the world if I want. What can you do?”

Pete studied him for a minute, while Patrick hung back and barely breathed. “I can stop you,” Pete finally said, and he lunged.

Pete tackled Mr Horst to the ground and Patrick was about to jump in and help him when something else grabbed his attention. It was another of the scaled, legged monsters they’d battled earlier, and it was well inside Pete’s range. It couldn’t be one of the creatures that would disappear when it got too close.

“Guys?” Patrick yelled, only remembering at the last second not to use their names. 

Everything happened too quickly to make sense of it. The lizard-creature pounced and Patrick jumped forward, slipping his backpack off and swinging it in one movement. The bag connected with the monster and sent it sliding across the floor. There were four textbooks and a hardcover copy of _Dune_ in there; Patrick hoped the blow had hurt like hell.

Mr Horst was bigger than Pete and was gaining the upper hand in their fight. The lizard monster picked itself up and looked ready to come after Patrick again; he wasn’t sure he’d get a lucky hit in a second time. “Help!” he yelled, holding his backpack in front of himself like a shield.

The lizard charged in and Patrick held himself ready. The next few seconds were a frenzy of movement in which Patrick’s backpack and the sleeve of his shirt were completely shredded. He tripped in his hurry to dodge the attack and fell painfully to the ground with the beast on top of him. Its gaping jaws filled his vision, and then suddenly the monster was being pulled away.

It was Andy and Joe, trapping the creature in a tree like they’d done the first time. And when he looked for Pete, Patrick saw him standing next to Mr Horst, who was already pinned down, struggling helplessly against the tree branches that had wrapped around him. Pete wasn’t looking at the villain they’d captured, though. He was looking at Patrick.

***

Patrick climbed the steps to Pete’s front door and rang the bell. After a short wait, it opened to reveal Pete on the other side.

“Hey,” he said. “I, uh... I wasn’t sure you’d come. You’ve been kind of busy.”

It had been two weeks since the incident with Mr Horst. They’d sent Patrick away to protect his identity, but Pete had had to stay with the teacher to prevent him using his powers to escape. Patrick had – not avoided them, not that. He’d talked to Andy, who’d told him that Mr Horst had been taken away and put somewhere secure where he couldn’t endanger anyone else. And Joe, who... well, he’d really only discussed schoolwork with Joe, and the odd marking habits of the Chem substitute teacher. But aside from that, he’d just... been busy.

“I told you I had something for you, didn’t I?” Patrick said. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Pete let him in and Patrick followed him upstairs, checking that no one else was around. “The reason I came over was to give you this,” he said, and pulled something out of his new backpack.

“What is it?” Pete asked. “Sunglasses?” He took them from Patrick’s hand.

“Not just sunglasses,” Patrick said. “Try them on.”

“They’re kind of heavy,” Pete said, slipping the arms over his ears. “And they feel – a bit weird.”

Patrick grinned. “Yeah. I made them.” He hesitated. “Um, using that blood sample you gave me, remember? And then I pretended I needed the spectrometer for extra credit work – or, well, I actually did some extra credit work as well, but anyway – they only work for you.” Pete turned his head towards Patrick, although his eyes were hidden by the shades. Patrick gulped. “Um, when you’re wearing them, you should be able to control your power. Only mute the powers of certain people, or weaken them rather than negate them entirely.”

“Seriously?” Pete took the sunglasses off and studied them. “Patrick, this is amazing.” He glanced up at Patrick and laughed. “Oh my God. I can’t wait to show Andy and Joe. I’m going to mess with them so bad.” He looked at the sunglasses wonderingly, which made Patrick blush. They were nothing special, really, just cheap sunglasses from a newsagent that he’d modified a little bit.

“It’s going to be kind of inconvenient to wear them all the time while the three of you are off being superheroes,” said Patrick. “I’m working on something a bit smaller. Have you ever thought about getting a piercing? An ear? Eyebrow?”

Pete quirked an eyebrow at him, and instead of answering the question, he said, “The three of us?”

“Yeah, you, Joe and Andy.”

“You’re one of us too, Trick.”

“I’m not a super, Pete.”

“So?”

Patrick didn’t have an answer for that, so he just frowned at Pete, who took the sunglasses off and said, “We would have been screwed if you weren’t there. You went after that thing with your bare hands. You jackass.”

He’d added that last in an affectionate tone, but Patrick stiffened anyway. “I had to do something,” he said.

“That’s how it starts,” said Pete. “So I think now, you’re totally qualified to tell Andy he’s wrong about my choice of superhero name.”

“What...”

“I like Decaydance. He thinks it’s stupid, but he’s so obviously wrong. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t really get what it has to do with...” Patrick caught Pete’s eye and realised he was being distracted. “I’m no superhero. I was scared shitless the whole time.”

“Well, that changes everything,” said Pete. “I mean, personally, I never feel scared. Absolutely no superhero even knows what fear is.” Sarcasm was heavy in his voice, and Patrick rolled his eyes. He felt Pete touch the back of his hand. “Especially not when that monster almost bit your arm off,” he said. “Couldn’t have cared less.”

Patrick lifted his hand up a little so that Pete’s fingers could wrap around it. “I could tell,” he said, “by how you called me six times that night to check if I was okay.”

Pete laughed slightly, although he looked kind of embarrassed. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I thought you might just be trying to make me feel better.”

“I definitely wouldn’t pretend to be tougher than I am just to impress you,” said Patrick. “That would never happen.”

Pete grimaced at him. “Patrick,” he said, “I’m not saying I want to, mind you, but...”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you might want to...” Pete trailed off and looked frustrated.

“Not scared of anything, huh?” Patrick teased. “Come here.”

And after they’d kissed, Pete said, “Who says you don’t have superpowers?”

Patrick cracked up. “You’re such a dork.”

“We’ve got to work out a suitable superhero name for you.”

“Oh my God, Pete...”

“The Kiss of... something. The Lips of Doom.”

“I’ll lips of doom you.”

“Is that a promise?”

Patrick supposed that it was.


End file.
